This has global repercussions, even in developed nations. In Australia, for instance, a parcel of soy meal - one of the main ingredients of chicken feed – was quoted at AU$460. But as of July 9 the price is AU$645. Indeed, the Sustainable Consumption Institute in the UK claims food that families now take for granted could become too expensive if global temperatures rise in line with the current trends and reach 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius).

In the developing world where food expenditure makes up a larger proportion of daily budgets, the effects can be devastating. In 2008, and again 2011, record global food prices contributed to a steep rise in poverty and hunger, as well as sparking rioting and political instability around the world.

So why, in 2012, do we continue to experience a situation where food prices are increasingly volatile, and where so many people are denied their fundamental right to food? We would argue that there are five fundamental causes:

Climate change represents the ultimate threat to food security. There is strong scientific consensus that the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events,such as the drought currently afflicting the American mid-west, are likely to increase under climate change. On July 10, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that last year’s record drought in Texas was made “roughly 20 times more likely” because of man made climate change, and saidthat anthropogenic warming had to be a factor in the drought. Enough said, really.

Inequality of income and access to resources, both within and between countries, is the biggest socio-economic driver behind hunger. Unequal access to resources means that huge areas of land are being used for rich consumers in distant markets, instead of food for local consumption.

Industrial farming has come at the expense of declining soil fertility, freshwater pollution and depletion, and loss of biodiversity, while also driving millions of farmers into debt and eroding rural communities’ ability to exert control over crucial resources such as land and seeds. Meanwhile, genetically engineered crops are not designed to feed the poor or to decrease prices, do not increase yields in a sustainable manner, and have failed under extreme fluctuations in temperature and moisture.

Loss and waste of food from harvest to table is a major issue. Enough food is already produced in the world to feed every human being on the planet comfortably, and further gains could be achieved to feed future generations through the application of agro-ecological farming practices. But current estimates suggest that as much as 30 % of the food grown today is spoiled or wasted, an unacceptably high figure.

Financial speculation on commodity futures markets has greatly exacerbated the volatility of food prices. Prices on the futures markets for corn and wheat have already risen by 38% and 33%, respectively, over the past three weeks. If transmitted onto global markets, inflation of this magnitude could again have a disastrous impact on the millions of low-income households worldwide who spend a majority of their budget on food.

Greenpeace is calling on governments to take action to end this recurring nightmare. Key steps needed to prevent future food crises include cutting greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change, scaling-up investment in more resilient and ecological agricultural practices, addressing inequalities in income and access to resources, and drastically cutting food waste from field to fork. Regulators must also be given the power to strictly limit the role of speculative capital in food commodity futures markets.

The weather will always be beyond human control. But measures to prevent runaway climate change that do impact weather, develop more sustainable farming systems, improve the economic position of poor food producers and consumers, and protect the most vulnerable from predatory speculative behaviour, definitely lie within our grasp.

Dr Julian Oram is Senior Political Advisor, Sustainable Agriculture, at Greenpeace International

It appears to me that there are several things we can at least begin to think about: learn how to live without fossil fuels; adapt to the end of econo...

It appears to me that there are several things we can at least begin to think about: learn how to live without fossil fuels; adapt to the end of economic growth; substitute a steady-state economy for the one we have now; stabilize human population numbers worldwide; and deal with the relentless dissipation of Earth’s limited resources, the reckless degradation of its environs, the wanton extirpation of its biodiversity as well as confront other human-induced threats to our planetary home as a fit place for human habitation. In any event, I trust most of us can agree that stealing the birthright of children everywhere, mortgaging their future, and exposing them and life as we know it to danger cannot somehow be construed as the right things to be doing.

We have to think clearly and as keep our wits about us as we move away from big-business-as-usual practices to a way of life that embraces true sustainability, I suppose. Perhaps necessary changes to more sustainable lifestyles and right-sized corporate enterprises are in the offing.

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(Unregistered) GEOVILLAGE
says:

Eco-village offers multi-dimensional and multi-level solutions to Climate Change and its adverse effect. Finding a safe grounds with water source and forest will be able to relocate a start up portion of the community specially the Youths to initiate organic food production, alternative energy, disaster preparedness training, eco-architecture, eco-engineering, eco-landscaping etc...

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(Unregistered) fá
says:

Project "flooding Never Again", capture excess water in the rivers during the rainy engine without the use of storage for use in drought or ...

Project "flooding Never Again", capture excess water in the rivers during the rainy engine without the use of storage for use in drought or other applications, such as: power generation, fish breeding, agriculture, depending on regional needs: it is a new way, at low cost to overcome the problems of droughts and floods, in addition to minimize losses of material goods and humanos.Meu e-mail:
There are still esperaça if we act quickly and globally

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(Unregistered) Wondrouswoman
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Thank you for the information.

I went onto a plant based diet a few years ago for health reasons with great results. Although I didn'...

Thank you for the information.

I went onto a plant based diet a few years ago for health reasons with great results. Although I didn't realize it at first, I now know that my avoidance of a diet based on meat (mainly factory farmed) and dairy in order to make myself healthier is also very good for the environment.

I now celebrate the fact that on a plant based diet, according to David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell, I’ve reduced my energy consumption by about 50%. In addition to celebrating a lower cholesterol and blood sugar, I'm helping to reduce the amount of methane, CO2 and Nitrogen released into our atmosphere, the tremendous amount of water drained into the raising of animals (5000 gallons per cow for one pound of beef), the amount of pesticides that end up in our oceans with the consequent expansion of the growing number of dead zones.

Of course, I don’t expect everyone to give up hamburgers or fried chicken tomorrow. I did so primarily out of self interest and only when I was “against the wall” health wise and facing dire consequences. What’s more, I did it gradually, piling more beans and greens onto my plate until I ended up with no room for meat.

At an “advanced” age, I’m trim and active and, to the amazement of my doctor, I have a normal blood pressure and am not on statins or any other medication. (The drug industry could go bankrupt on people like me.) I make many fewer doctor visits, and even though I am eating “organically”, and very well, I am spending much less on food.

The average American, on the other hand, is consuming 2200 pounds of food per year and 3800 calories per day (well above the average of 2500 necessary to health). Way too many of those 3800 calories—half to be exact--come from sugar (about 280), fat (600) and meat and eggs (about 1000).

An outstanding example of such detrimental calories is provided by diet soda. Did you realize that to get one 12 ounce can of the soda with a content of zero to one calorie, 2200 calories of fossil energy are expended—i.e., 600 calories for the soda and 1600 for production of the aluminum can (according to Pimentel)?

One final fact that has amazed me was that we are losing on average eleven tons of soil per acre per year at a rate eleven times faster than soil formation (at one ton per year). Obviously, this is not sustainable. Add in a drought like the one we are now experiencing in this country which is a “breadbaskets of the world,” and you can see the writing on the wall. We are facing a huge and historic humanitarian crisis.

AS you may well know, some years ago the U.N. issued a report claiming that 18% of global warming could be attributed to large scale animal agriculture. (More recently, that figure has been questioned and re-analyzed with the result that the estimate of 18% increased to 51%.)

A big part of pollutants released to the atmosphere in the course of raising animals is Methane which is, reportedly, a stronger greenhouse gas on a per-molecule basis than CO2. That’s the bad news. THE GOOD NEWS is that Methane has a significantly shorter half life than CO2—perhaps twelve to fourteen years—than CO2 and other pollutants. This suggests to me that possibly, even a modest decrease in meat and dairy in our diets could make some difference in the near future . (Note that Environmental Working Group estimates that if every in the U.S ate no meat or cheese for just one day per week for a year the impact would equal taking 7.6 million cars off the road.)

Increasingly, research is pointing to the fact that it is not just our use of fossil fuels that seriously damage our environment but, to a large extent, what we put on our plates. I hope in the future to see Greenpeace and other activist organizations putting the issue of food even more to the front and center. After all, the two things—fossil fuels and food production--are already intertwined in reality. Our job is to make the connection clear to the populace.

Wouldn’t it be beneficial organizationally speaking to tie together two of our most active lobbies—environmental and healthy food—in a powerful coalition? I now belong to both groups, and based on talks with people around me, I believe that the swelling number of Americans concerned about their health would welcome such a development. Together, health advocates and defenders of the environment could mobilize more broadly to educate the public and pressure/lobby the powers that be.

For fifty years, I have been a grassroots activist for a better and peaceful world. My first significant act, upon retiring from the 9 to 5 world was to get rid of my car and walk much more. My second was to change what I eat. Never, in my “former life” as a heavy meat eating, milk drinking woman, did I foresee that I would do such a thing. The idea that such a modest change in behavior could have any “political” impact was beyond me.

Now, I feel not just physically better but more powerful because I’ve learned from my last few years’ experience a simple thing that I (and others) can do to impact our planet—eat more responsibly. Beyond that, I intend to take some other actions. First, I am supporting California’s much maligned and little publicized “right to know” Proposition 37 (see: http://www.carighttoknow.org/tags/proposition_37). Second, I intend to continue lobbying my city council (with little response so far) to consider enacting a “Meatless Monday” as part of the international campaign to educate people to the connection between diet and our environment.

I realize this has been lengthy comment, but I feel compelled to pass on what I see as an important message which is stated succinctly is: “If you want to be healthier and defend the environment, start by paying attention to what you put on your plate. Our future depends on it.”